ONC offers plan for HIT safety center

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has put forth a plan for developing a national Health IT Safety Center--a plan that defines the center’s focus, functions, governance and value.

The plan was developed by RTI International under contract with ONC with input from a task force of health IT safety experts, patient advocates, clinicians, vendors and healthcare organizations. "The task force did not propose for the center to have a regulatory function, but to promote health IT safety by convening interested parties, doing focused work to identify and disseminate best practices, and serve as the leading voice in addressing patient safety generally and health IT-related safety issues more specifically," wrote Andrew Gettinger, MD, ONC's chief medical information officer, in a post on the agency blog.

An “optimal” HIT Safety Center would require a funding level of $17.8 -$20.6 million over five years, according to the plan.  

"Many stakeholders are already heavily engaged in various aspects of patient safety; the center would support and complement these activities, not replace them,” states the roadmap. “The safety of health IT can be improved, and the improvement should be continuous, as part of a learning health system. To realize the proposed Center—and create a trusted space for collaborating on solutions—ONC should work with stakeholders from across the health care spectrum and government to gain support for a Health IT Safety Center based on the model described in this document.”

"Now it is up to all of us who are working for the safe and secure use of health IT to move forward to a place where clinicians are not just satisfied with their work systems but where they couldn’t possibly imagine providing clinical care without them," wrote Gettinger.

Read the roadmap.